Why do people live there again?

Right now in my home town it is 33 degrees. Farenheit.

Top 5 Fridays, late because I had to host a baby shower Saturday

My two-and-a-half-year-old's five favorite things:

5) Lady bugs

4) Trains

3) Seeing his speech therapist, Didem (pronounced DEE-dum). Arthur says "Go see Dee!"

2) Big airplanes

1) "Big waffles" (he means waterfalls -- and he's going to go bonkers when we take him to Yosemite in a couple weeks!)

Dumb and dumber

According to two of the popular stories on the New York Times web site, teenagers don't know much about his-tor-ee and our president -- yes the PRESIDENT of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA -- appeared on a game show hosted by Howie Mandel.

Top 5 Fridays 3, three days late

Top 5 surprises from the Cubs so far this season:

5) Reed Johnson coming from out of nowhere (Toronto actually, but same diff) to fill in at leadoff and become one of my new favorite players. All hustle, that guy.

4) Ryan Dempster's success moving from the bullpen to the starting rotation.

3) Kerry Wood's success moving from the rotation to the bullpen.

2) Zambrano hasn't hit a home run yet

1) Their actually, um, kind of, ahem, good.

Marty Brennaman calls Cubs fans idiots

The Reds announcer (whose son, Thom, is one of the best in baseball, imho) wasn't far off with his comments. But then, he had to go and say this:

"[Compared to Cubs fans] Cardinals fans are hands down the best in baseball. They respect the game. They don't go to the game to do stupid stuff. …" Um, how about picking fights with 12-year-olds? Threatening Cubs fans in San Francisco?

that said, here are some comments from the Trib story, which I pretty much agree with:

I have been a Cubs fan all my life, but you know what? Brennaman is right. I was at the game on Tues. night in the bleachers, where I have typically sat since I was in gradeschool (in the 80s), and the people there were the worst I've ever experienced. They were more interested in razzing Corey Patterson than they were in the game; they cared more about their beer and getting wasted and talking on their cells phones than the game. The latter behavior I've gotten used to. But the former? Why does everyone have to "suck"? Why do we have to shout profanities and rude names at opposite players? Is that maturity? Is that even sportsmanlike? Is that a fan? I think not. I'm a fan and I would never act like the idiots in the crowd on Tues. night. Yet another reason to stay home and listen to the game on the radio. Wrigley as an entity is becoming a joke. How sad. Sad for Chicago. Sad for the Cubs. Sad for baseball. Posted by: dib | Apr 18, 2008 12:46:48 PM

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yeah, it is disrespectful. the fans even throw a "substitute ball" making it more obnoxious...I always thought that throwing ANYTHING on the field was grounds for ejections --it is in every other ball park. If you don't want the ball --give it to a kid... just wait until a player gets hurt by one of those balls.... not to mention when they litter their "shrine" with garbage when they do not like a call. For Piniella to say "They get into the ballgame" is a joke. half of them have no idea what is going on , they are just there for the Frat party

Posted by: Johnny B. | Apr 18, 2008 12:50:16 PM

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I believe the majority of cubs fans are good fans. You just never see them at Wrigley because it's filled with idiots who go there only to drink and don't really care about baseball. The problem is, the highest concentration of idiots are in the most visible part of the park: the bleachers.

Two-wheeled Wonder

From the Sierra Club:

Bicycles are not for everyone, and they're not for every trip. Cars do many things that bicycles cannot easily do: carry heavy loads uphill, protect riders from the elements, and cover long distances quickly. But a surprising number of car trips could easily be made by bike. Nearly half of all trips in the United States are three miles or less; more than a quarter are less than a mile.

...

Short car trips are, naturally, the easiest to replace with a bike trip (or even walking). Mile for mile, they are also the most polluting. Engines running cold produce four times the carbon monoxide and twice the volatile organic compounds of engines running hot. And smog-forming (and carcinogenic) VOCs continue to evaporate from an engine until it cools off, whether the engine's been running for five minutes or five hours.

Top Five Fridays 2

OK, obviously I totally forgot about this, but I'll try to start it up again...

Five worst things about being sick:

5) No bike riding

4) After dragging your sick, exhausted self to the doctor, dragging your sick, exhausted self to the pharmacy to get your meds. (Why oh WHY can't they just give it to you at the doctor?!? Can ANYONE tell me????)

3) Constantly wondering where your next tissue will come from.

2) Having to get out of bed and walk 20 feet to the next room where your meds are.

1) Trying to figure out how to take care of a toddler and a baby while you feel like you are going to die.

Pro-Choic Evangelicals?

About a third of white evangelicals say that abortion should sometimes or always be legal, according to the Pew Research Center—a number that hasn't changed in a decade. In recent election seasons, however, these moderate voices have been drowned out by hard-line shouting on both sides. In the past, an evangelical who might condone abortion in the case of his ailing wife or 14-year-old daughter would never say so in public. Now, the abortion rhetoric has faded somewhat as evangelicals turn their attention to other things: AIDS, the environment, Darfur. In 2004, megapastor Rick Warren announced that abortion was a "nonnegotiable" for evangelical voters. This year, he's been silent. What's new, then, is not that a pastor like Hamilton would take a softer approach to abortion, but that he would feel comfortable enough to say so from the pulpit and in print.

Football and politics

Is it really possible for a football coach to endorse a candidate for president?

You mean, it really wasn't Bartman's fault?

Thanks, Moises, for clearing that up.

I can't believe we're still talking about this.

And apparently Bartman isn't the only one who wants to move on. Says Aramis Ramirez:

"Like I've said before, he probably had a shot to make a play, but the ball was in the stands," Ramirez said. "Any other fan in that situation would have done the same thing because they all do that, every time. I don't know if [Alou] was going to make the play or not, but he had a shot to make it."

Why are we still talking about this? Oh, that's right, because it's the closest the Cubs have come to getting in to the World Series in 63 years, except for the time when Leon Durham pulled a Bill Buckner two years before Bill Buckner did it...

Bush booed before throwing out first pitch

I don't really feel a need to comment on this.

That about sums it up.

From the Trib:

When Kosuke Fukudome hit a three-run homer off Milwaukee closer Eric Gagne to tie the season opener in the bottom of the ninth inning Monday, fans all over Wrigley Field held up professionally made signs with English words on one side and Japanese on the other.

It was meant to be a two-sided version of the phrase "It's Gonna Happen." But something got lost in translation, and the Japanese side read: "It's An Accident."